Want to be compassionate to people? Get them jobs. That means hard-nosed Washington budget decisions, and tax cuts. Deep tax cuts.

That's how you care about people. Jobs are 70% of everything. Public health, suicide, crime, the list goes on. Employed people have better outcomes on all of these measures than unemployed people. Want to help someone? Get him a job.

I've stopped a couple of social workers dead in their tracks with this reasoning. What's the number one indicator of health, happiness, etc? It's a job. Most social workers will (sometimes grudgingly) admit this. OK, next step, what creates jobs? Tax cuts. Talk about the Laffer curve.

Leftie-mind-blowing conclusion? Tax cuts are the best public health measure. I've gotten wide-eyed silence from this several times, from dyed-in-the-wool Canadian socialists.

Compassionate conservatism already exists, it is called private charity. But compassion in gov is meaningless, since real compassion is voluntary, while gov is based on force.As for creating jobs, gov spending programs are useless and counterproductive, and any repub who proposes them as a solution for jobs is a complete rhino, and a pathetic dem wanna be. A better idea for jobs is the idea Rand Paul had for Jack Kemp style enterprise zones, where taxes and regulations are reduced in high unemployment areas, since a program like that reduces gov, rather than expanding it.

The original idea as proposed by Marvin Orlasky in his book was great. His point was get back to the tradition of compassion before it was hijacked by FDR and Lyndon Johnson. Orlasky's emphasis was on private charity and morality. Unfortunately it was all hijacked again in the service of bigger spending and liberalism lite.

The term, "compassionate conservatism" is dead but the idea is still worth pursuing. A conservatism that spends less, limits government, and emphasizes private charity and morality is naturally compassionate.

We cannot just hope that voters will recognize the compassion in conservatism, however. The Dems have a lot of voters conned into thinking they are the sole source of compassion in politics, and all Republican proposals will always hurt the poor. We have to continually show examples of true conservatism that actually helps the average person.

Because this label/philosophy serves as a good excuse for statist Republicans to keep on making the federal government bigger and bigger at a (very) slightly slower pace than Dems would, allowing them to do what they want to do anyway under the guise of being "compassionate".

The "Compassionate Conservatism" moniker is really just a thinly disguised front for big-government Republicans. There is nothing particularly conservative about it at all, and the designation serves to demonize genuine strains of conservatism as uncompassionate, which is a lie that ultimately serves the interests of the left.

One parting gift... the left gave us this name 'conservative'. Our side did not pick it. Probably a big reason I don't mind modifying it. Considering the gravity pulling people to various forms of statism (both strong and unending); the free market 'conservative' is usually the actual radical in the room.... hardly a "conservative". The NPR listening 60s throwback... living in the past is...

Compassionate conservatism has never been defined. So I took it to mean - changes to our governance which made people's lives better, by using the market more heavily.

For instance, School Vouchers are compassionately conservative. They are conservative for obvious reasons and they are compassionate to those kids and parents being set free. Same for health savings accounts.

Maybe I was the only one who saw it that way, but I saw it as a good thing for that reason.

It was a moniker that appeals to people that already accept the commielib paradigm.

It's like calling a black guy, an articulate and clean black guy. Too many on the right have internalized everything The Left calls them. Then they spend their career trying to disprove a dishonest accusation. The Mayberry Types think if they can just prove they aren't what The Left calls them they will be loved and respected, if not elected. They are fools for not noticing The Left will never let you be known as reasonable unless they are certain you are insignificant. The Right can't nominate a black guy for office and short-circuit charges of racism. Ditto for women, Latinos, etc.

The dems push a caricature of the 'right wing extremist' conservative (re: anyone not one of them btw) and the media let them use it w/o pushback... This stupid term helps re open the conversation allowing the republican to explain he is not for cutting off social security for the destitute... et cetera...

If these Hamiltonian types were compassionate they wouldn't repeat the same misunderstanding Hamilton had. Namely that economic growth is organic from the bottom. It is the small entrepreneurs, artisans, and inventors who keep the economic wheels turning. Not so much top down cronyism. Getting out of the way of the talented innovators who know how to produce the goods and services people want and not taxing and regulating the snot out of their success at the behest of the rent-seekers and grievance mongers would get things rolling again in this country. Now that would be compassionate.

InstaPundit is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.